Resco has been very
WHAT’S HOT
proactive about supporting Windows Mobile 2003, Second
Edition. Nearly all of the Resco products are
SE-compatible, version 5.0 of Photo Viewer among them.
Their support for WM2003SE isn’t merely a "doesn’t
crash" type. Resco Photo Viewer
handles changes from portrait to landscape orientation
quickly and flawlessly. It also supports full
VGA resolution screens as well as the more typical
QuarterVGA screens.
In addition to WM2003SE support version 5 is chock-full of
useful features: It "plays nicely" with network
resources. It supports a huge array of graphics
formats. It can not only work with pictures, but
even display converted PowerPoint presentations. In spite of all that, the user interface is simple and
easy to use.
Resco Picture Viewer uses
SETUP
ActiveSync’s Add/Remove Programs functionality to
install. You can install it in main memory, on a
storage card, or in a ROM file store. I didn’t
notice any significant decrease in speed of operation
with the program installed on a storage card.
When you install the Pocket PC program, you also have
the option of installing the Resco Album Generator on
your desktop PC. The Resco Album Generator
allows you to create photo albums of pictures on your
desktop system and transfer both the pictures and the
album information the next time you sync.
PROGRAM FEATURES
Resco Photo Viewer "splash" screen
When
you first run Resco Photo Viewer, you’ll get the
"splash" screen shown above. The icons
let you select which photos you wish to work with and
give you access to the options and help.
The order in which you use these and which you’ll use
depends on your situation. We’ll take them in
order left-to-right, top-to-bottom.
The "Open Album or Photo" feature is used for opening
individual pictures or already created albums. Pictures can be
located in the Pocket PC’s memory, on a storage card, or even on a network-connected
medium. You can also "beam" pictures over an IrDA (infra-red)
connection.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Open Album or Photo screen with Folder drop-down
showing
At
first glance, the "Open" dialog looks a lot like the
standard "Open File" dialog in Windows CE.
However, Resco has imbued it with a number of
extensions: First, it’s not limited to the "My
Documents" folders as the standard dialog is. It
defaults there, but one click on "All Device Folders"
shows everything. There’s also an "Explorer
Mode," which you get by clicking on the 
Explore icon. When you do, the following icons
are added to the task bar.
Open – Explorer Mode
icons
The new icons (from left to right) switch out of
Explorer mode, go up one folder level, and create a
new folder. The next icon is the 
Network icon. Clicking on it calls up the
following menu.
Open – Network menu
The "Network" menu allows you to "map" a drive (any
network-connected storage medium), unmap a mapped
drive, and select from a list of previously mapped
drives. If you elect to map a drive, you’ll get
the following screen.
Open – Network map drive
screen
You can type the URL directly into the entry box at
the top, but you can also navigate the "Computers Near
Me" tree to find available network resources.
This is one area of the program where Resco’s
experience with writing their enhanced File Explorer
software shows. If you tap on the [Settings]
button, you’ll get the following screen.
Open – Network settings
The autodetect mode will select the IP address and
Netmask from an open network connection. You can
also keep a list of manual settings and select the
appropriate one as needed.
When you attempt to open a network resource, you’ll get a
logon screen like the one below.
Open – Network logon
Enter the appropriate information in the User name,
Password, and Domain items and select whether you want
Photo Viewer to remember the password you use. When you click [OK], you’ll be able to access the
network resource through the folder tree as shown
below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Open Album or Photo screen with a networked resource
showing
Finally, the 
"Sort" icon allows you to select the order and style
in which files display. You can select large or
small icons, an item list or a detailed list, and you
can sort by name, size, date, and file type.
Once you select a photo or an album from the "Open"
dialog, you’ll get the main screen shown
below. We’ll look at that in detail in a moment.
Resco Photo Viewer -
main screen showing a single open file
The "Browse
Folder" feature is used to view all pictures in a given folder. The folder can be located in the Pocket PC’s memory, on a storage card,
or on a network-connected medium.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Browse Folder screen
The Browse Folder dialog is similar to the "Open Album
or Photo" dialog except that, when you click on a
folder which contains photos, all the photos in the
folder are loaded into the program and appear together
on the main screen as shown below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
main screen showing an open folder
The "Browse
CF Card" feature acts like the other two "open"
dialogs except that it loads every picture on a storage card. As the icon (but not the label) suggests, you can use this feature on
any storage card, whether it’s a Compact Flash (CF) card or a Secure
Digital (SD) card; whatever you can plug into your Pocket PC.
When you click on "Browse CF Card," you may also get the
dialog shown below, which allows you to set the
"default" CF card. The language is a bit
confusing. It really should say "storage card"
instead of "CF Card" since there are other types of
storage media.
Resco Photo Viewer -
select default CF Card screen.
You can also set the number of subfolder levels the
program will scan in order to find photos. Once
you complete the dialog, if it appears, you’ll get the
main screen with all pictures on the
storage card loaded as shown below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
main screen showing an open storage card
The "Last
opened" feature simply opens whichever album, photo, folder,
or storage card you were viewing the last time you used the program.
The File Menu
The "File" menu on the splash screen has the options
shown above. The "Open…" option opens an album or single
photo. The "Open URL…" allows you to download
a picture from an Internet location or web site.
The "Browse Folder…" option is exactly the same as
the splash screen option of the same name. It’s
also the same functionality as the folder icon on the
button bar. As you’d guess, "Browse CF Card"
does the same thing as the splash screen option of the
same name. "Favorites" and "Recent Files" pop
out a list of your favorite photos or albums and a
list of the most recently referenced files
respectively. "Settings" pops up the menu shown
below.
File menu — Settings
sub-menu
"Options" does the same thing as the "Options" icon.
It calls up the "Options" dialog that we’ll examine in
a moment.
"Associations" sets the types of files that
will automatically call up Photo Viewer if they’re
clicked in File Explorer. It uses the dialog
screen shown below, which also indicates all the file
formats that Resco Photo Viewer supports. It’s
an impressive list.
Resco Photo Viewer -
File Associations screen
The "Delete Cache Files" options deletes the files
Resco Photo Viewer uses to "remember" various
conversions it’s made recently. This includes
pictures that it’s resized to thumbnails. Deleting the cache file restores that file space for
other uses but the program has to do the work over
again to display thumbnails you’ve already seen.
"Registration…" allows you to enter your registration
information that you get when you purchase a license
for Resco Photo Viewer. Finally, "System
info…" calls up the following dialog.
Resco Photo Viewer -
System Information screen
This is another point where Resco’s experience with
their other utility software shows. The "System
Information" screen would be a good little utility as
a stand-alone. It shows your device’s model
name, the operating system version and build number,
and storage capacity of the various media available on
your Pocket PC. It can also show the level of
charge of your PPC’s batteries using the "Battery" tab.
The Tools Menu
The "Tools" menu has only one option, which is
"Capture Screen." It calls up the dialog you see
below.
The "Capture"
dialog allows you to capture a screen immediately or after 10 seconds
(allowing you to switch to a different program and perhaps pop open
a menu). The [X] in the upper left allows you to cancel the capture.
The naming of captured screen files and other options are handled in
the "Options" screens, which we’ll see in a moment.
The Main Screen
Once you select a file, album, folder or card to view, you’ll end
up on the Main Operations Screen like the one shown
below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
main screen showing an open folder
The window title will be the name of the currently
selected photo. Below that are "thumbnail
images" of the photos that you can scroll through.
Clicking on one of the thumbnails selects that photo
and loads the image into the work space below the
thumbnails. Below the work space is a button bar 
containing icons that (from left to right) open a new
folder, add the current photo to your favorites, start
a slide show, select a "zooming" level, rotate the
picture to the left or right, play voice notes,
add/edit text notes, draw notes, and show photo
information. The zoom and rotation operations do
not change the original photo. They only affect
how the photo is seen within Resco Photo Viewer.
Likewise, the note operations don’t affect the actual
image, but are stored in the slide show file and
super-imposed on top of the image while you view it. Below, you’ll see an example of the information that
the (i) icon returns when you press it.
Resco Photo Viewer -
photo information screen
At
the bottom of the main screen is the menu bar 
.
The "File" menu is shown below:
Resco Photo Viewer -
main screen File menu
"Start" simply closes all open files and folders and
returns you to the splash screen. "Open" pops up
a sub-menu that has the same "open" options we saw in
the splash screen. It also give you access to
your Favorites. "Save" pops up a sub-menu that
allows you to save the current picture as "Wallpaper"
for your Today screen, Save the current picture under
another name or in a different location, Save the
current Album, or Save the current Album under a
different name or in a different location.
"Send" pops up a sub-menu allowing you to "beam" the
current photo over IrDA, send the photo via e-mail, or
beam or e-mail the current Album. The "Print…"
option allows you to print the current photo using
HP’s Mobile Printing software. If you haven’t
already downloaded and installed it, the program pops
up a message box with the URL to download it. As
you might guess, "Recent Files" calls up a list of
recently loaded photos, albums, and folders. "Settings"
pops up a sub-menu similar to the one from the splash
screen, but with a few more options as shown below. The additional options’ details follow.
"Slide
Show" calls up the "Slide Show Settings" dialog seen
below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Slide Show Settings screen
The
"Slide Show Settings" screen allows you to set the
items shown above. Transition Effect include
Cover left, right, up, or down, Push left, right, up,
or down, Uncover left, right, up, or down, Blind
vertical or horizontal, Striping, Dissolve, and
Random. You can set the Play Direction to
Forward, Backward, Random, or Manual. The last
setting means that you’ll only move between slides
when you tap the right or left arrows on the
directional pad of your Pocket PC. The Delay
sets how long Resco Photo Viewer pauses before
transitioning to the next slide. "Repeat in
loop" cycles the slide show to the start when it
finishes with the last slide. "Start in full
screen mode" means that the slide show will
automatically open with the first photo showing rather
than open with the thumbnails and work area.
"Show text notes" allows you to show the photos with
or without notations. "Silent mode" turns off
voice notes and background music. [Set
Background Music...] pops up the dialog shown below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Slide Show Settings screen
The
"Background Music" screen (oddly labeled Album
Properties & Settings), lets you switch between
playing voice notes attached to each picture or a
sound file throughout the slide show.
Now let’s move on to the "Photo" menu.
Resco Photo Viewer -
main screen Photo menu
The
"Photo" menu has options that allow you to change the
way photos are displayed as well as the ability to do
some actual photo editing as well as a few "don’t fit
anywhere else" functions. "Slide Show…" calls
up the "Slide Show Settings" dialog we saw recently.
When you click (OK) from the dialog in this case, the
slide show actually starts. "VGA Output" calls
up a sub-menu that allows you to select your VGA-out
hardware (from Voyager, Pretec VGA, Presenter-to-Go,
and FlyJacket). It doesn’t appear to support
Toshiba’s add-on VGA-out hardware. "Capture
Screen" calls up the "Capture" dialog we’ve already
seen. "Thumbnails" calls up a sub-menu that lets
you show full-screen thumbnails (an oxymoron?), refresh
the displayed thumbnails, turn off or on the file name
labels for thumbnails, and select from large icons,
medium icons, small icons, or details in file lists.
It seems to me that last set of options should be
under a different heading since it really doesn’t
affect the thumbnail images. "Reorder" allows
you to sort photos by name, time, size or order them
manually. When you order them manually you get a
screen like that shown below.
Reorder Thumbnails
screen
On
the "Reorder Thumbnails" screen you can still choose
to sort by name, size, or date. Then you can
select a file and move it up or down in the list.
Back on the "Photo" menu, the "Add" option pops up a sub-menu
that allows you to add a Drawing, Text Notes, or Voice
Notes to the selected photo. The "Go To" menu
allows you to quickly navigate to the First, Previous,
Next, or Last photo in the set or to go forward or
backward a page. The "Zoom" menu allows you to
select resizing the photo from 50%, 75%, 100%, 150%,
200%, and 300%. You can "fit" the photo to the
screen, resizing it so that the full photo displays on
the screen without scrolling or you can "fill" the
screen, resizing the photo so that one dimension
completely fills the screen but the other may exceed
it. You can also choose to fit, fill, or resize
to the original size all the photos in the set.
"Rotate" allows you to set Portrait or Landscape
orientation or to switch the photo to landscape view
if it’s wider than it is tall. You can do this
for the currently selected photo or all photos in the
set. You can also manually rotate left, right,
or 180 degrees. "Properties" gives information
about the current photo or the current album.
The "Picture…" option calls up the same
"Information" screen as the (i) on the button bar.
The "Album…" option calls up the "Album Properties &
Settings" screen (also called the "Background Music"
screen) that we saw recently. It’s inclusion
here explains the curious screen label I noted
earlier.
The previous options affect how the photo is displayed within
Resco Photo Viewer, but don’t actually affect the
photo file itself. The following options do
affect the photo file. "Brightness" displays a
new menu bar and a slider above it. Both are
shown below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
brightness slider and menu bar
The
"Option" menu lets you restore the default values,
make a negative image, and apply the settings to all
the images. The icons (from left to right) set
the slider to affect brightness, affect contrast,
affect Red/Green/Blue color saturation, affect only
red saturation, affect only green saturation, affect
only blue saturation, accept changes, and cancel
changes. The icon to the left of the slider
changes to reflect which aspect the slider will
change.
The "Crop/Resize" option on the "Photo" menu displays the new
menu bar shown below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
crop/resize menu bar
The
"Tools" menu allows you to restore the original image
(after a botched crop/resize), save the current image,
save the current image under a new name or in a
different location, set the current image as your
Today Screen "Wallpaper", Print the image using HP’s
Mobile Printing software, Zoom or Rotate the image
with the options we’ve previously seen, get
context-sensitive help, and cancel any editing of the
image. The first icon calls up the "Resize" screen you see below.
Resco Photo Viewer -
resize screen with Preset drop-down showing
You
can resize the current image by percentage, to a
specific pixel size, or to the preset sizes shown in
the drop-down above.
The tool to the right of the resize icon, sets Resco Photo
Viewer in "Crop" mode. Ordinarily, holding the
stylus down on the image and moving it will scroll the
image as you move. With Crop mode on, holding
the stylus down on the image and moving it will select
an area of the image to "crop." Cropping
eliminates everything outside the crop area. Below is a set of screen captures showing the cropping
process.
Cropping – first select
an area to crop
Cropping – tapping
inside the area crops the photo to the crop selection
The
final icons on the crop/resize menu bar zoom out, zoom
in, rotate left, rotate right, accept changes, and
cancel changes.
Returning to the final item on the "Photo" menu, "Quick
Preview" turns off and on a small preview window at
the bottom right of the image work area (shown below).
A portion of the image
work area showing the Quick Preview pane
You’ll notice a red rectangle in the Quick Preview
pane. That shows you which portion of the
current image is in the display. You can
tap-and-hold on the rectangle to quickly move it to
another part of the image. This is particularly
helpful for finding and copying portions of a very
large image file.
It’s
been a while since we’ve seen the main screen Menu
bar. Here it is again for reference:
The icons (from left to right) switch on or off the display
of the button bar (above the menu bar), move to the
previous photo, move to the next photo, zoom out, zoom
in, turn off and on the thumbnail display, display the
current picture in fullscreen mode (a double-tap
returns to the thumbnail/work area display), and call
up the brightness/contrast/RGB adjustment tools we
recently saw.
As promised, we’ll
now look at the "Options" screen, which are called
up by clicking on the Options icon on the splash screen or by selecting
Options from various File menus. The Options screen has a tabbed
interface that allows you to select which set of options you want to
work with. We’ll begin with the General Options.
Resco Photo Viewer -
General Options
The "General Options" tab allows you to set the
default card which is opened when you select "Browse
CF Card" from the splash screen of from a menu.
Again, the "CF" label is bit confusing, especially
when many Pocket PCs now support SD cards instead of
CF cards. You can also set how many folders deep
into the card the program will scan for image files.
You can elect to open with the splash (or wizard)
screen or go immediately to the last opened picture or
folder when Resco Photo Viewer is opened. You
can also select whether an Album will automatically
start a slide show when opened from the File Explorer.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Optimization options
The "Optimizations" tab allows you to set how Resco
Photo Viewer loads large image files. You can
select to load them in their original size (good if
you’re cropping) or resized to various standard screen
sizes. The second option (partially obscured by
the drop-down) allows you not to resize faxes and
black and white images. You can also elect to
turn off thumbnail caching which will use less memory
but make loading thumbnails you’ve already seen
slower. Finally, you can "dither" images to
display better on less-than-full-color devices and set
Photo Viewer to automatically resize images on load to
the most appropriate (nearest to full-screen) size.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Viewer options
The "Viewer" tab allows you to set the default zoom
mode from to either "fill" or "fit" modes.
Again, fill resizes the image to fill the whole screen
allowing some of the image to go beyond it. Fit
makes sure the whole image is viewable on the screen
without scrolling. You can set the default
rotation to auto landscape left of right or no
rotation. You can set auto landscape orientation
to only occur when photos are show in full-screen
mode. Finally, you can set the background color
(for transparent photos), correct gamma (very useful
on the iPAQ 3800 series), and elect to switch to/from
full-screen mode with a double stylus tap.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Thumbnail options
The "Thumbnails" tab allows you to set the interface
"skin" which changes the appearance somewhat.
You’ve seen the "Default" skin already. There
are two others provided with the program: The
"Blue" skin uses (as you’d imagine) blue icons and
blue highlights as opposed to the yellow-red of the
default skin. The Blue and Default skins have a
set of higher-resolution icons which appear which you
use the program on a VGA-size screen. The "OldStyle"
skin uses icons reminiscent of the previous versions
of Resco Photo Viewer. The OldStyle icons don’t
have higher-resolution VGA counterparts. This is
another point where the grouping of options isn’t
really intuitive. The skin doesn’t really affect
thumbnail display, but it comes under the Thumbnail
tab. The next set of options do affect thumbnail
display. The allow you to set whether the
thumbnails appear at the top or bottom of the work
area, whether you use a vertical scroller to move
around in the thumbnail pane, and whether the file
name appears under the thumbnail. Finally, we
have two options that appear on this tab by default. They allow you to display photos with or without text
and drawing notations.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Player options
The "Player" tab allows you to select how video clips
and animated GIFs are displayed. You can
automatically run video clips when they’re selected
and you can automatically play the next clip when the
current one is done. You can also play animated
GIFs in a loop, just once, or not at all. You
may also notice a slight typographical error in the
GIF Animation drop-down.
Resco Photo Viewer -
Button options
The "Buttons" tab allows you to set which functions
are attached to which hardware button. By
assigning the functions you most commonly use to
hardware buttons, you can save time by not having to
navigate menus for those functions.
HELP SUPPORT
Resco Photo Viewer
has a full suite of help and support. The help file is available
through the splash screen icon you see above as well as by calling up "Help" from the Pocket PC Start Menu. In addition
to the built in help, there is
a full (PDF format) manual (in English only) and
an online support request form available on the Resco
web site.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Resco Photo Viewer 5.0 requires 813KB of Storage (in
Main Memory or on a Storage Card) and 1.38MB of
Program Memory to run. (More will be used
depending on thumbnail caching.) It’s fully
compatible with WM2003SE as the screen captures below
show. It will also run under Pocket PC (2000),
Pocket PC 2002, and Windows Mobile 2003 (First
Edition) operating systems. German and English
versions are available for Pocket PC systems, but only
English is currently available for WM2003 systems.
Resco Photo Viewer in
portrait
orientation
Resco Photo Viewer in
landscape orientation
There was only two issues I noticed while running
BUGS AND WISHES
Resco Photo Viewer. Occasionally, under heavy
memory use (having loaded a large CF card worth of
photos), the program would behave oddly. At one
point, it told me that all of my photos were either
corrupted or using an unknown format. Exiting
and reloading the program solved that problem.
The other issue was an occasional "artifact" appearing
on the user interface. For instance, when I
dragged the boundary box in the Quick Preview pane,
sometimes the boundary box wouldn’t erase from it’s
old position leaving the appearance of two boundary
boxes.
Also, not bugs, but an issues I noted previously: There
were some points where functions were grouped together
in a way that wasn’t appropriate. As an example,
putting the skin functionality in the Thumbnails tab.
Either the tab should be renamed or skins should be
moved to another tab. There was also the use of
"CF" to refer to cards that aren’t Compact Flash which
might be confusing.
All of these issues fall under the category of minorly
annoying. My only significant annoyance is that
the program doesn’t support my VGA-out adapter for my
Toshiba e800. (It apparently won’t support any
Toshiba add-on.) That completely prevents me
from using my Pocket PC to show PowerPoint
presentations for the duration unless I buy one of the
supported options.
Resco Photo Viewer is available
PURCHASING
from the pocketnow Store for $19.95 (US). You can try it for 30 days without purchasing a
license.
PROS
- Fully
WM2003SE-compatible - Supports a
huge array of graphics formats - Can import
PowerPoint presentations - Built in help and further
online support
CONS
- Uses "CF
Card" to refer to all types of storage cards - Some items
in the user interface are oddly labeled or oddly
grouped - Occasional
odd behavior under heavy memory use - Occasional
graphics "artifacts" appear on the user interface - Supports
only four VGA-out options
In spite of a few minor
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
issues, I’m very impressed with Resco Photo Viewer
5.0. I found the program to be quick and easy to
use under a wide variety of circumstances. The
pricing is very reasonable, especially considering the
array of functions at your disposal. I strongly
recommend the program, especially if you’re
considering one of the new WM2003SE VGA Pocket PCs. My only caveat would be, if you want to use your
Pocket PC for presentations, make sure you have, or
are willing to purchase, one of the supported VGA-out
cards.
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